Equiangular SpiralLogarithmic Spiral

Pursuit Curve

Persuit curves are the trace of an object chasing another. Suppose there are n mice each at a corner of a n sided regular polygon. Each bug crawls towards its next neighbor with uniform speed. The trace of these mice are equiangular spirals of (n-2)/n * Pi/2 radians (half the angle of the polygon's corner). The Figure 1 on the left shows the trace of n mice mice, resulting n equiangular spirals of 45 degree. In the second part of the Figure 1, we may see some whirls which are figures constructed by nesting a sequence of polygons (each haing the same number of sides), each slightly smaller and rotated relative to the previous one. The vertices give the path of the n mice and form n logarithmic spirals.

	Figure 1 Persuit Curves

Catacaustic

Catacaustic of an equiangular spiral with light source at pole is an equal spiral. Proof: Let O be the pole of the curve. Let O' be the reflection of O through the normal of a variable point P on the curve. The locus of O' is then an equal spiral since distance[O,O']/distance[O,P] is constant for any P and equiangular spiral remain unchanged by scaling. Now the reflected ray PO' is just the tangent of O'. End of proof.

caustic Figure 2

The evolute of an equiangular spiral is an equal spiral, so is its involute. In Figure 3, The left figure shows osculating circles of the curve and the locus (red curve) of their centers (Q).
The right figure shows the curve's envelope of normals.

Figure 3a	Figure 3b
evolute

The radial of an equiangular spiral is itself scaled. The Figure 4a shows a 70 degree equiangular spiral and its radial. The Figure 4b shows its involute, which is another equiangular spiral.

Figure 4a	Figure 4b
radial

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Inversion

The inversion of an equiangular spiral with respect to its pole is an equal spiral (See Figure 5).

inversion Figure 5

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Pedal

The pedal of an equiangular spiral with respect to its pole is an equal spiral. In the Figure 6b, the lines from pole to the red dots is perpendicular to the tangents (blue lines). The blue curve is an equiangular spiral. The red dots forms its pedal.

Figure 6a	Figure 6b
pedal

Negative Pedal The negative pedal of an equiangular spiral is shown at Figure 7.

negative pedal Figure 7

Parallel

Parallel curves can be defined as the locus of points Q1, Q2 on the normals of the curve, where Q1 and Q2 are k distant from the curve (See Figure 8).

parallel Figure 8

Geometric Sequence

If any part of the curve is scale up or down, it becomes congruent to other parts of the curve. Lengths of segments (red lines) cut by equally spaced radii (brown lines) is a geometric sequence. Segments of any radius vector cut by the curve is also a geometric sequence, with a multiplier of E^(2 Pi Cot[alpha]).

geometric sequence Figure 9

1. http://www.best.com/~xah/SpecialPlaneCurves_dir/EquiangularSpiral_dir/equiangularSpiral.html

2. http://www.treasure-troves.com/math/whirl.html

3. http://www.treasure-troves.com/math/MiceProblem.html

This page created December 4, 1999

This page last modified December4, 1999